Re: Question about transitivity/intransitivity

> > I'm just saying that "I gave the dog to John" is basically the same
> > sentence as "I gave the dog"...the recipient is optionally supplied by
> > means of an oblique (a prepositional phrase). In "I gave John the dog",
> > on the other hand, no arguments are oblique, so in this case "gave" is
> > ditransitive. It's sort of like the difference between "The door opens"
> > and "He opens the door", except in regards to the indirect object. Not
> > sure if that made it any clearer...
>
>No, 'John' is oblique.  The fact that it's not marked does not make it any
>less so.  It's oblicity(??) is shown by word-order, I think.
Interesting. I tend to agree with Joe. To my mind, weather or one sentence
is labelled "ditransitive", "John" still seems to be as much an oblique (or
indirect object) by position/convention as does "to John" by preposition,
thought there is an inner part of me which says that I parse both a bit
differently. Hmm.

I also don't follow the "The door opens" allusion, esp. since one can't, by
convention, say in English "He opens me the door". I suspect this is because
I see "the door opens" as "the door opens (itself)".

Verbs like "see" are still ill-defined in Bes Dis'z as I tried to constrict
it to use only transitive verbs. For "I see him" I cheat by using "He is
seen by me" - "rafíd sil" - as "I see him" - "sifíd san" translates more as
"I cause him to be seen". I've never liked this, but is a bit too late to go
about shifting verb forms in Bez Dis'z. ::shrug:: We live and learn.

These are a couple of the the issues which I'm hoping to resolve up front in
Laafaah.

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